The Outlands are a plane of concordant opposition—a disk-shaped plane of perfect neutrality at the center of the Outer Planes. Anything and everything can flourish on the impartial and balanced canvas of the Outlands: a broad region whose boundless terrain blends to match the extreme forces that shape it. Arid, flame-scarred plains give way to heroic mountain ranges sculpted in the likenesses of gods, moldy caverns ruled by sapient fungi, bottomless seas, and anything else that makes for great adventures.
This chapter provides information for the Dungeon Master about the extraplanar realms of the Outlands, their inhabitants, and life at the center of the Great Wheel.
An impossibly tall pillar of rock, the Spire, towers over the vast and varied environments of the Outlands One Pixel Brush
This section details facets of everyday life in the Outlands.
Save for the domains of gods, realms in the Outlands are subject to a planar phenomenon known as cosmic realignment. When a location embodies the nature of one of the Outer Planes too closely, that plane absorbs the location and its inhabitants, restoring balance to the Outlands and expanding that plane. Some creatures combat cosmic realignment by acting in direct opposition to the linked plane's temperament, while others gladly welcome this fate or pursue it outright.
Bartering is common in the vast and varied realms of the Outlands. When money exchanges hands, it often takes the form of a lodestar—a weakly magnetic, cobalt coin stamped on both sides with a five-point star. Minted in the gate-town of Tradegate (detailed later in this chapter), a lodestar is valued at 1 gp elsewhere.
Like Sigil, the Outlands are home to speakers of every language, but creatures generally speak Common. Still, certain locations attract those who favor a particular tongue. For example, residents of towns with high concentrations of devils tend to also speak Infernal, while those in locales frequented by angels prefer to trumpet their holy praise in Celestial.
Creatures in the Outlands revere gods as folk do anywhere else. At the center of the Great Wheel, faiths are as diverse as their worshipers, who hail from neighboring planes and distant Material Plane worlds. The Outlands contain the domains of several gods, such as the hidden tower of Annam the All-Father, creator of giants, and the gaseous realm of the beholder god Gzemnid. Devout worshipers, whether alive or dead, gravitate to their gods and carry out their will.
Though the plane has no apparent suns, moons, or stars, the Outlands experience day and night cycles, sometimes referred to as peak and antipeak, respectively. In the morning, the sky gradually brightens, darkening to night 12 hours later. In the absence of clearly visible celestial bodies, travelers orient themselves based on the direction of the Spire, known as spireward. The opposite of spireward is brinkward.
The poster map included with this product depicts the Outlands and some of the locations found on the plane. Distances in the Outlands are impossible to gauge, fluctuating along with travel times as determined by the DM. The map displays pictorial impressions of locations that only hint at their arrangement and distances from one another, making no claims about the wondrous sites that might lie between them. A journey in the Outlands could take minutes or days, leading to a popular saying among locals: "It takes as long as it takes."